Lari Pittman

Biography

A major figure in the Los Angeles art world, Lari Pittman produces large-scale, graphic paintings whose surfaces are populated with colorful, clashing imagery. Pittman worked as an interior designer for a decade before turning to painting full-time, and his work conveys a fascination with decoration and artifice. “A reflective, sensational surface is still a conduit for meaning,” he has said. An array of objects such as teapots, Russian easter eggs, and musical instruments fill his images, sometimes radiating out from a central diamond-shape or a mandala-like circle. Rather than studying his subjects closely, Pittman works from memory—sometimes on a group of paintings simultaneously—investing the ornamental with lofty themes such as life, death, love, and sex.